According to several news reports the Italian Competition Authority searched Google’s Milan offices this morning as part of an investigation into the company’s abuse of its ‘dominant position on the internet’, says paidContent:UK.

The investigation was sparked by a complaint from the Italian Federation of Newspaper Publishers criticising the search giant’s lack of transparency in handling Google News – in particular the ranking process.

Full post at this link…

Google responds on its European Public Policy Blog stating that publishers can request to be removed from Google News at any time and that Google drives vast amounts of traffic to publishers’ websites.

• Tip of the day from Journalism.co.uk – get your blogs listed by Google
• How to get the most from Google News feeds
• Google introduces option for five-a-day free click limit
• BBC College of Journalism blog: Google not to blame for journalism’s woes
• YouTube videos now available in Google Maps

After the search giant announced the end of its Print Ads scheme, Journalism.co.uk contacted Google about the future of its audio and TV ad initiatives.

Would they be affected? A resounding no from the Google spokesman.

Well, yesterday Google announced it will be closing its Radio Ads programme – citing similar reasons to the print scheme closure:

“While we’ve devoted substantial resources to developing these products and learned a lot along the way, we haven’t had the impact we hoped for.”

Instead Google will focus on online audio streaming and advertising around this, phasing out the existing audio ads by May 31 and selling Google Radio Automation – the software that automates broadcast radio programming.

Up to 40 staff involved with the project are expected to lose their jobs, said Susan Wojcicki, vice-president of product management, in the blog announcement.

• NUJ attacks Newsquest over proposed pension cuts
• Google closes Print Ads scheme
• BBC: Google and Yahoo to share ad space online
• Sourcefabric promises a free, multi-platform solution for news outlets
• Washington Times: UK start-up approached Google to buy Print Ads

The WSJ’s reaction to Google’s response to its article about the search giant’s ‘net neutrality’ position was an ‘old-media approach’, writes Matthew Ingram.

• Nieman Journalism Lab: Matthew Ingram on the WSJ’s social media policy
• Nieman Journalism Lab: Why the NYT was wrong to keep quiet about Rohde’s kidnap
• paidContent:UK: Italian Competition Authority searches Google’s Milan offices in newspaper dispute
• Twitter workshop for journalists shared – courtesy of Globe & Mail’s Matthew Ingram
• Times Online: Google shows support for local newspaper mergers

Google is making it its mission to make old newspapers available online. The search giant will partner with newspaper publishers to digitize millions of pages of news archives, and hopes to make more newspapers accessible and searchable online. In time
these archives will be blended into the main Google search results.

• Google search looks to bloggers
• FIPP 09: Fears ahead for magazines – what concerns those at the top?
• Deutsche Welle: German news publishers file Google complaint
• Poynter: Google’s new +1 social search and news publishers
• Google launches What Do You Love search

A group of Belgian newspapers are seeking up to £39m (€49m) in damages from Google for the search giant publishing and storing their content without permission or offering payment.

Last year Google lost a case brought against it by the Copiepresse group – an organisation that represents the French language press in Belgium – forcing it to remove cached versions of newspaper articles and take down content from its Google News service

The organisation’s secretary-general told Bloomberg yesterday it had summoned Google to appear again before a Brussels court so that it could decide on the damages. Copiepresse is seeking between €32.8 and 49.1m.

The damages would be in addition to the €25,000 (£20,000) daily fine imposed on Google by the court for each day it kept Copiepresse material on its site.

Google appealed the original court decision of February 2007, which ruled that it could not claim ‘fair use’ – acceptable under copyright law – for using a lines of text and linking to the original article.

A Google spokesperson told Bloomberg that it was still awaiting the results of its appeal and that it had not received notification from Copiepresse of any new court dates.

• Belgian newspaper group to take European Commission to court again after its first challenge over news aggregator fails
• DNA09: Aggregators – friend or foe? Unfair competition, says Copiepresse
• Guardian: Ryan Giggs named in court as injunction footballer
• Google Ads round-up – the changes explained in links
• French court finds website guilty of privacy breach for linking

Google News respects copyright and is not looking to move into content creation, Josh Cohen, content specialist for the search giant’s news channel, has said in a Q&A with the Toronto Star.

“…[I]t’s really about helping people to find the content that’s out there. We just don’t see ourselves as content creators. We’re more of a platform for that content,” he said.

• Insite: Finding the people behind sites – an insite guide
• Online video: Reuters wants to offer more raw video to clients
• #Tip of the day from Journalism.co.uk – photo resources
• #Tip of the day from Journalism.co.uk – Twitter verification
• BBC’s sports editor on social media and the Olympics: ‘There’s an illusion around Twitter’